Palacky, Frantisek (1798–1876)

Czech historian, critic, minor poet, and politician. A Protestant of humble background, he was instrumental in founding the important scholarly Journal of the Czech Museum, which still appears today. He was a conservative literary theorist whose monumental History of the Czech People in Bohemia and Moravia (1836–67), covering their history to 1526, remains important as a re-assessment of Czech-German relations and of the Hussite period.

Palacky was a chief exponent of the revived Czech nationalism whose first political opportunity came with the revolutions of 1848. At that time he refused to attend the Frankfurt Parliament and endorsed the survival of the Habsburg Monarchy in the interests of its Slav inhabitants with the famous remark that ‘if Austria did not exist it would be necessary to invent her’. After the absolutist reaction in the 1850s, Palacky emerged as leader of the conciliatory Old Czech party which combined claims for full national identity with social conservatism.